Utah Mammoth center Logan Cooley (92) is hit by Pittsburgh Penguins defensemen Kris Letang (58) and Ryan Shea (5) as he skates between them during the second period of an NHL game at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday, March 14, 2026 (Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News).
(Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY – The Mammoth suffered a painful and concerning loss on Saturday night as they lacked maturity and forfeited a comfortable 2-0 lead over the Penguins.
After committing a collection of penalties and failing to fend off a two-man advantage, Utah quickly lost control and failed to ever regain momentum against Pittsburgh.
There’s no sugar-coating Utah’s loss to the Malkin-less, Crosby-less Penguins on Saturday night.
Despite dominating Pittsburgh through the first period with a two-goal lead less than seven minutes into the contest, the Mammoth lost the hockey game, 4-3.
What a steal! What a goal!
Gunner makes it 1-0, Utah. pic.twitter.com/C3N01856mr
— Utah Mammoth (@utahmammoth) March 15, 2026
Gunner tallies ✌️
2-0, Utah. pic.twitter.com/GYntm3AYFB
— Utah Mammoth (@utahmammoth) March 15, 2026
Why?
They masterfully mismanaged the momentum.
Rather than delivering a fatal blow with a third goal, Utah committed back-to-back penalties in the second period which put them at a 5-on-3 disadvantage.
This opened the door for the Penguins who proceeded to burst through, tying the game in less than three minutes.
Mo making it happen and tying his career best of 25 goals in a season 👏 pic.twitter.com/cEFTvNUq6B
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 15, 2026
IT’S TOMMY TIME ‼️ pic.twitter.com/5mqeuULigX
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 15, 2026
“(It’s) disappointing,” Head Coach Andre Tourigny explained. “The first angle is that we had full control of that game, and instead of playing a mature, simple – get above them, put pucks deep and stuff like that – we forced the play with the puck and tried to do way too much. We took penalties in the (offensive) zone – most of them, except one – five in a row in the second. We gave them hope (with) bad line changes and stuff like that.”
“The lack of maturity today in our game and our management cost us the game. We were in full control; we had no reason.”
The moment Pittsburgh tied things up, Utah lost complete control and instead, began forcing the issue, missing passes, blocking their own shots and were completely disconnected.
Polar opposite from the first where they continuously broke down the Penguins defense by zipping the puck around and finding the open man.
“You saw the plays we made, the forechecks we had. We had a lot of (offensive) zone time, more than doubled them in (offensive) zone time. We did a lot of good things – that is good, but it doesn’t matter if you lose 4-3.”
“What matters is if you manage the game the right way, if you (make) the right decision, if you do all the little things that make you win at the end of the day.”
Unfortunately, Utah simply didn’t do all the little things for 60 minutes.
They looked good for about 35 and then let their guard down.
Now, did the refs play a factor?
Yes.
In addition to two questionable no-calls involving Logan Cooley, Bryan Rusts goal came shortly after another questionable no-call against Clayton Keller.
This is unacceptable behavior.
How on earth did this go unpunished along with several others?pic.twitter.com/4moLdtmEv8
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) March 15, 2026
But here’s the thing.
It doesn’t matter.
The refs are part of the game.
Utah may have been a victim of poor officiating, but they still put themselves in situations to take bad penalties which opened the door for Pittsburgh.
Can’t do that.
“That’s something I cannot control. What I can control is penalties in the O-zone. Where we put our stick. Not giving an opportunity to the ref to be a factor,” Tourigny explained.
“I did not like a few stuff but it’s about us…it’s on us. It’s on me.”
Like it or not, Tourigny is right.
Doesn’t matter if the refs make or don’t questionable calls.
Utah can’t control the whistle.
What they can control is their actions and unfortunately, they didn’t do a good enough job to win the game.
Simple as that.
The loss to Pittsburgh was concerning.
Not to the point of sounding the alarm or losing all hope, but it’s certainly worth questioning the maturity of this team at this point in the season.
In back-to-back home games, Utah simply squandered points against inferior opponents.
They should’ve beaten Chicago and were in driver’s seat against Pittsburgh.
Is the playoff pressure getting to them?
According to defenseman Ian Cole, they’re not handling that pressure well enough.
“We should be handling it better than we are,” Cole said. “We have a lot of guys that want to win hockey games but for whatever reason we’re finding ways to lose hockey games. We need to flip that script right away…we can’t let this continue to snowball.”
“There’s going to be a hard meeting tomorrow. There’s going to be a lot of honesty that needs to get brought out and put out there. We need to handle that in a mature way.”
This is simply what it boils down to.
The skill and the talent are there.
They don’t lack personnel.
What they’ve lacked as of late is the maturity to play their game for 60 minutes in the meaningful games as playoff pressure has finally appeared before them.
Can they figure it out?
The team certainly thinks so.
“We did it for all of the month of January, a big part. So, it’s not something (where) we need to reinvent ourselves. We have that. We just need to make sure we keep our demons in check,” Tourigny said.
“I do [believe we have the maturity to be better], I do,” Cole added.
Nobody said making the playoffs would be easy.
It’s not supposed to be.
But all things considered, Utah simply has to be better.
If they play their best hockey and miss the playoffs, so be it. You can live with those results.
But if they continue to play like they have over the past week and miss out, that’s when it becomes unacceptable.
Time will tell if they can make the necessary adjustments.
The Utah Mammoth will begin a short two game road trip against the Dallas Stars on Monday night at 6:00 p.m. MT.
The game will be available on Mammoth+.
All Mammoth games will also be broadcast live on the KSL Sports Zone (97.5 FM/1280 AM).
